Review of the Year April 2000 – March 2001 508964AR.CHI 8/23/02 12:18 PM Page *2

Home , David Lloyd George, Evelina de Rothschild, John Charles Herries

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THE ROTHSCHILD ARCHIVE Review of the year April 2000 – March 2001 508964AR.CHI 8/23/02 12:18 PM Page *2

Cover Picture: Mr S. V. J. Scott, a Clerk at N M Rothschild & Sons, photographed at his desk in the General Office, 1937 508964AR.CHI 8/23/02 12:18 PM Page *3

The Rothschild Archive Trust

Trustees Emma Rothschild (Chair) Baron Eric de Rothschild Lionel de Rothschild Professor David Landes Anthony Chapman

Staff Victor Gray (Director) Melanie Aspey (Archivist) Elaine Penn (Assistant Archivist) Richard Schofield (Assistant Archivist) Mandy Bell (Archives Assistant to October 2000) Gill Crust (Secretary)

The Rothschild Archive, New Court, St. Swithin’s Lane, London EC4P 4DU Tel. +44 (0)20 7280 5874, Fax +44 (0)20 7280 5657, E-mail [email protected] Website: www.rothschildarchive.org

Company No. 3702208 Registered Charity No. 1075340 508964AR.CHI 8/23/02 12:18 PM Page *4 508964AR.CHI 8/23/02 12:18 PM Page *5

CONTENTS

Introduction ...... 1 Emma Rothschild, Chairman of the Rothschild Archive Trust

Review of the Year’s Work ...... 2 Victor Gray

The Cash Nexus: Bankers and Politics in History ...... 9 Professor Niall Ferguson

‘Up to our noses in smoke’ ...... 16 Richard Schofield

Rothschild in the News...... 22 Melanie Aspey

Charles Stuart and the Secret Service ...... 24 Robert Franklin

The Clementine ...... 27 Melanie Aspey

Whatever happened to Sarah?...... 28 Vic Gray

Principal Acquisitions, 1 April 2000 – 31 March 2001 ...... 30 508964AR.CHI 8/23/02 12:18 PM Page *6 508964AR.CHI 8/23/02 12:18 PM Page 1

INTRODUCTION

Emma Rothschild, Chairman of the Rothschild Archive Trust

The Review of the Year for 1999/2000 recorded the establishment of the Rothschild Archive Trust, the generous donation to the Trust of the archives of N M Rothschild & Sons Limited and the opening of the Rothschild Archive in its new premises in St. Swithin’s Lane. To coincide with the opening, a Guide to the collection was published and the Archive launched its own website. These steps represented a remarkable stride forward in bringing the Archive to the attention of a wider audience and helping it fulfil its potential as a major resource for historians.

In 2000/2001, as this second edition of the Review demonstrates, the Director and staff of the Archive have maintained the momentum, with the active help and support of many who have recognised the significance of what the Trustees are attempting to achieve: the gathering together in a safe haven of the records of a family which has had the opportunity to play a part in many aspects of the history of the last two hundred years, and the creation of a centre for research to explore them to the full.

This year, with the publication of the Guide behind them, the staff of the Archive have been investigating various routes by which the content of the Archive could be more fully explored. One approach is reflected in Richard Schofield’s article in this Review and other pilot projects are recorded in Vic Gray’s account of recent work in the Archive.

The Trustees have also continued with the work of building the collections - adding new papers both from within the Rothschild family and its businesses and from other sources. As the record of acquisitions shows, members of the family have responded well to this objective and during the year the collections have been considerably enriched by new deposits of papers. We hope this will be the beginning of a collective effort to make the Archive as comprehensive and useful a research centre as possible.

The pursuit of other related material has taken the Archive into new and unexpected fields. Collaboration with the Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek in Frankfurt has yielded microfilm of a remarkable international collection of press cuttings recording the activities of the family over a period of many decades. Collaborations of this sort will be a keynote of the Archive’s programmes in future years.

None of this would have been possible without the continuing generosity of N M Rothschild & Sons Limited in funding the administration of the Archive, for which the Trustees once again record their deep gratitude. This year has also seen the early stages of development of a capital fund which, one day, may allow the Trust to move towards a greater measure of self-sufficiency.

The reintegration of political history and financial history is one of the genuinely exciting new opportunities for historians of the modern period, as Professor Niall Ferguson demonstrated this year in his lecture at The Rothschild Archive on Bankers and Politics. So is the reintegration of national and international or global history. The Rothschild Archive can in both respects, we believe, become a very substantial resource for historical scholarship and public understanding.

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Review of the year’s work

Victor Gray, Director of the Rothschild Archive

This has been the first full year of operation of King and the Infanta; a growing economic crisis in The Rothschild Archive in its new premises in St. Cuba and the damaging effect on the Spanish Swithin’s Lane and under the aegis of the economy of flour and sugar production in Cuba; Rothschild Archive Trust. Both have contributed competition between the mines of Almadén and to a sense of renewed confidence and direction those in California; the working of Spanish among the small team whose task it is to explore railways (in which the Rothschilds had significant the content of the archive and to develop and interests) including news of rail accidents and exploit its potential as a source for researchers. disasters; and military conspiracies, student disturbances and teachers’ walk-outs in Madrid.

Cataloguing A second pilot, concerned with Rothschild involvement in the world of commodities, looked Following the publication last year of a Guide to at what records among the archive would provide the Archive, efforts this year have been focused on evidence on the bank’s engagement in the 19th a number of pilot projects which will help define century tobacco trade. The results of that pilot are priorities and methodologies for ‘drilling down’ described in an article by Richard Schofield on into the detailed content of the collection so as to page 16 of this Review. This approach has proved strike the richest seams for future research use. a valuable way of identifying for researchers the sources in the Archive on which they might Work on the series of letters from the Rothschilds’ concentrate and will undoubtedly be repeated Madrid correspondents, Weisweiller and Bauer, with other commodities. during the years between 1881 and 1892 was reported in last year’s Annual Review and was A third route explored has been biographical in completed during this year. approach, taking individual members of the family, in this case Lionel Nathan (1808-1879) and The firm, in its various manifestations, was in his son Alfred Charles (1842-1918) and providing, regular and heavy correspondence with both the alongside brief summary biographies, details of the London and Paris Houses of Rothschild from 1833 archive sources which can be explored to pursue to 1929 and the quantity of surviving letters, some further research into their lives and activities. in French, others in German, is vast. The pilot The results will be made available in leaflet form project, which also dipped into the series received and via the website. by and sent from de Rothschild Frères in Paris, gave some considerable insight into the Yet a further approach being tested is that of information-gathering methods and the executive attempting a detailed listing of correspondence functions of the two banks and pointed the way to relating to a particular year or event. Given the further work which might be done. degree to which historians and myth-makers alike have seen links between the family’s banking The immediate fruits of the project were a activities and the ‘Year of Revolutions’, 1848, this substantial indication for researchers of the was an obvious subject for a pilot project. Work is, complexity of the reports to be found in this at the year end, well under way and will be series. For the year 1884, for example, matters reported on next year. discussed or reported included an outbreak of phylloxera in Málaga and of cholera in Alicante, The results of these pilot projects will now inform with stringent quarantine restrictions; an decisions for work in the Archive in coming years. earthquake with 900 victims; the sickness of the

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The Judendeutsch Letters Project presented to Lord Rothschild on the occasion of his 70th birthday in 1910. Together they form a The central project to which the Archive has been remarkable collection of examples of this Arts and committed for some time remains the work of Crafts calligraphic fashion. transcribing and translating the letters between the five Rothschild brothers, written to each other on an almost daily basis during their rise to banking pre-eminence and in the years up to the death of the last of them, James, in 1868.

Work has most recently concentrated on the early years, between 1814 and 1818, the target being the completion, by the end of 2001, of a complete set of German transcriptions and English translations of the 2,000 or more letters from that period, linked electronically to scanned images of the originals so as to allow further editorial and research work to be carried out. The longer-term goal will be publication, probably in electronic A watercolour cartouche of Tring Park, the residence of Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild, from a testimonial presented to him on his form, of a series which will throw substantial new 70th birthday by the tenants of his Buckinghamshire Estate light on the funding of European governments in the final years and during the aftermath of the Of the two sons of the marriage, Walter’s activities Napoleonic War. are reflected briefly in a volume of press cuttings recording his General Election campaign for the Acquisitions Aylesbury seat in 1906, and Charles’ in the typescript of an unsigned book on the Bill of Exchange with manuscript annotations in his hand, The Rothschild Archive is very much a living as well as in an album of photographs taken on an archive committed to the goal of bringing together expedition in 1903 to Egypt and the Sudan in as comprehensive as possible an account of the search of entomological specimens. activities of the Rothschild family and their interests, whether in business, in collecting, or in the field The collection of papers extends, however, well of social welfare. As such, the seeking out and beyond this immediate family group. Through receipt of new archive material is a key objective, Emma’s branch of the family (she had been born pursued with considerable success this year. in Frankfurt, the daughter of Mayer Carl, one of the partners in the Frankfurt bank of M. A. Two important collections of family documents, Rothschild und Söhne), comes an important series generously placed in the Archive, the first by of portfolios describing and illustrating the Anita Rothschild and the second by Sir Evelyn de collections of gold and silver Schatzkammer objects Rothschild, have made substantial new built up by her father. A bound volume of Lieder contributions to our knowledge of the family’s composed by Emma’s aunt, Hannah Mathilde, the history. wife of Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild of Frankfurt and a pupil of Chopin is a valuable find, The first group have their origins in the lives of containing some hitherto unknown pieces. Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild (1840- 1915), his wife Emma Louisa (1844-1935) and Perhaps of most significance are the contents of their descendants. A fuller listing of the contents several small boxes which housed correspondence of these collections will be found on page 30 but and papers from the earlier generations of the some items among the papers merit highlighting. English Rothschilds, collected together seemingly A magnificent and unusual survival is a collection because they were recognised as being of potential of ten highly illuminated testimonials executed in importance in the history of the family. They varying but consistently beautiful styles and include letters on political and financial subjects,

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Title page from an illuminated testimonial presented to the 1st Lord Rothschild by the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews on the occasion of his 70th birthday, 1910

from a range of correspondents, to Lionel de aspects of Rothschild collections, had been Rothschild and to his son, Natty. Family affairs are organised by Emma, Lady Rothschild. It is not reflected, in particular, in two collections of letters clear whether she also organised the political and written by women: the first a small group of letters financial correspondence, which was the subject of from Charlotte (1819-1884), around the time of a good deal of study and arrangement by various her marriage to Lionel in 1836, in which the hands. seventeen-year-old bride-to-be reveals her hopes and anxieties about her new life; the second a The collection has been well tended and short series of letters to Nathan from Hannah augmented by Charles’ son, Victor, 3rd Lord Rothschild and some of her children during their Rothschild, and by his son, Amschel. visits abroad to attend the marriage of James and Betty in Frankfurt in 1824 and to Paris just prior The second major accession, from Ascott, adds a to the birth of Betty’s first child in 1825. These great deal to our knowledge of the lives of Lionel two collections, along with collections relating to de Rothschild (1808-1879), the son of Nathan the purchase of Gunnersbury in 1835, letters from Mayer, and, even more so, his wife Charlotte, with Evelyn and Anthony and from other serving letters from many of her friends and family across officers in the First World War and notes about the last forty years of her life.

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(1882-1942), comprises mainly papers and letters relating to the lives of her parents, while a further deposit of papers by Dame Miriam Rothschild includes material on her father Charles’ entomological interests.

Among other papers received during the year, mention might be made of the contract for alterations and additions to Sir Anthony de Rothschild’s Buckinghamshire house at Aston Clinton, bought in 1851. The contract was rediscovered within months of the arrival in the Archive of a similar contract for Mentmore, the house built by Anthony’s brother Mayer Amschel. Both contracts were with the Lambeth contractor, George Myers. Anthony’s work was on a considerably smaller scale, with a total contract price of £5,179, almost exactly a third of what Myers had bid for the work on Mentmore (though Myers’ final bill was almost 400% above estimate at £19,905!). The arrival of the Aston Clinton contract from 1851 gives a context to the many receipts and accounts for work already in the Title page of sheet music of Mélodies composed by Hannah Mathilde Archive (ref. XII/41/1 and XII/2/0) and helps fill von Rothschild and sung by Adelina Patti in the hitherto rather shadowy history of the house, which was demolished in the 1960s. The death of their daughter, Evelina, who died in childbirth just a year after her marriage to her cousin Ferdinand, is reflected in a small collection Continental Europe of mourning items and in letters by Ferdinand expressing his grief. But the life of that next While the bulk of the papers received this year generation is far more fully recounted in the have related to the English family, the activities of personal letters of Marie de Rothschild, wife of the French and German branches have also been Leopold, who was in constant correspondence well reflected (see the List of Acquisitions, p. 30). with her many cousins and relatives from among the leading banking families of Europe – the Mayer Carl von Rothschild (1820-1886) proves to Perugias (her own maiden name), the Landauers, be a central figure among papers received which Scheys and Weisweillers. relate to the Frankfurt branch. His unparalleled collections of Schatzkammer objects are recorded in Of particular value from this collection is a series several catalogues, while the early years of the of volumes of systematically collected cuttings on library, opened in 1887 in his memory by his the Rothschilds, dating from as early as the 18th daughter Hannah Louise, are reflected in an early century and continuing well into the 20th. When catalogue of acquisitions. It was in this library, now matched with those recently acquired from housed in the Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt this provides a remarkably broad that the remarkable collection of European news account of the development of the family seen cuttings on the activities of the Rothschild family through the eyes of the press. originated. Microfilm of this collection, acquired this year, is described by Melanie Aspey on page To these major deposits must be added two 22 of this Review. smaller but equally interesting groups of papers. The first, presented to the Archive by Mrs From France have come two printed works on Rosemary Seys, daughter of Lionel de Rothschild infant nutrition by Henri de Rothschild (1872-

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1947) written in his late twenties. He was, There is still much scope for greater use, however. eventually, to write well over a hundred papers on During the year, the Trustees have considered the subject. Henri also figures as one of eight options for developing a research network which members of the family pilloried in the series of will, over the years, attract more significant anti-Semitic caricatures published by Lenepveu in research in the Archive. These options include Paris around the turn of the century and also partnerships with one or more academic acquired during the year. institutions. During the coming year, this thinking will be developed and taken forward. Developing our knowledge of archives in France has been a stated objective for the year and, to that In the meantime, the year has seen research end, Elaine Penn has spent some time at the visitors from the U.K., U.S.A., Spain, Italy, Centre des Archives du Monde du Travail Germany, Israel and Canada and a range of (CAMT) in Roubaix, where the records of de approaches, from those pursuing individual private Rothschild Frères have been placed. The visit research to postgraduate work and research for served to build relationships for the future and a publication. Subjects have been as diverse as ever: number of joint projects between the two Archives from Brazilian finance to Japanese gardens; from have been proposed. the funding of the Battle of Waterloo to British responses to the American Civil War; from the A visit has also been made to Château Lafite to building of art collections to the architecture of examine and undertake some preliminary listing Victorian offices; yacht building to Spanish railways; of the archives of the Estate, which include many Jewish history to Latin American commission interesting documents both from the years since houses; espionage to mediaeval wood carvings. the family acquired the Estate in 1868 and from earlier owners back to the 18th century. Further Two particular emphases are apparent this year. work is planned for the coming year. The creation, economics and dispersal of art collections continues to develop as a new and keenly pursued aspect of art history, while there Research in the Archives seems also to be a return to biography, with at least four writers planning and preparing The Rothschild Archive Trust was established biographical works on members of the Rothschild with the explicit goal of extending access to the family and using the Archive as an element – in collections to the widest possible range of some cases the key element – in their research. researchers and thereby encouraging high-quality research. Among research contacts have been a number associated with forthcoming publicly focused The publication of the Guide and the construction initiatives based upon or featuring aspects of of the Archive’s website, have been but two means Rothschild history. These include the planned used to develop a widening circle of research exhibition on the Rothschilds as art collectors, contacts. These efforts will remain at the heart of scheduled to open in Philadelphia in 2005, a the Archive’s programme in years to come. permanent exhibition on the life of Edmond de Rothschild for display at Ramat Hanadiv in Israel Already these efforts are bearing fruit. The number and an exhibition, ‘The gift of the gods: the art of of researchers finding their way to the Archive has wine and revelry’, to open in the Royal Ontario increased by exactly 50% over the last full year of Museum, Toronto in the Summer of 2001. operation before the move of the Office to its Contributions were made to two historical projects current premises. Moreover, to the range of based in hospitals, The Clementine Kinderhospital enquiries by letter has now been added a new in Frankfurt, founded by Louise von Rothschild in volume of e-mail contacts. Overall therefore, the 1875 in memory of her daughter, Clementine, and desire of the Trustees to increase use is finding a The Evelina Hospital for Sick Children, founded ready response. by Ferdinand de Rothschild in 1869.

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The cover of ‘Rothschild - A Place in Czech History’ showing the opening of the Kaiser Ferdinands Nordbahn, a contemporary illustration

The Archive featured in television programmes on incorporates a searchable text of the Guide, the life of Edward VII and the Rothschild together with practical information on the Archive collections, the latter for Japanese TV. and how to use it and a range of galleries of images and information on Rothschild subjects, with links to other sites. An on-line form for the Publications submission of e-mail enquiries is already bringing almost daily contacts to the Archive. The year began with the publication of The Rothschild Archive: a Guide to the Collections, a major The site will gradually evolve as we develop a stepping-stone in the history of the Archive, sense of what will be of most use and interest to providing for the first time, a view into all parts site-visitors. of the collection so that researchers can navigate their way around them and locate likely sources Two further publications have been completed of material for investigation. The Guide’s attractive this year. Following the appearance of Rothschild presentation and innovative loose-leaf format, and Hungary last year, we went on this year to which allows for future amendment and expansion, produce a second booklet, Rothschild: A Place in have been widely welcomed. Czech History, once again intended primarily for use within the N M Rothschild Group but nevertheless providing a useful introduction to scholarly study. The booklet touches upon a number of themes, including the building of the first railway in the Austrian Empire, the Kaiser Ferdinands Nordbahn, financed and promoted by Salomon von Rothschild, the Rothschild acquisition, in 1843, of Witkowitz, the largest ironworks in the Empire and the magnificence of the nearby estate of Schillersdorf.

The Rothschild Archive Review of the Year April 1999- March 2000, an innovation proposed by the Trustees A page from the Guide to the Rothschild Archive Collection, published as a means of publicising the work of the Archive in 2000 and of building up a circle of interest among researchers and potential contributors to the Simultaneously, the Archive launched its own Archive, has proved widely popular and has elicited dedicated website www.rothschildarchive.org which a number of very positive and helpful contacts.

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Rothschild Bibliography Wishing to maintain the tradition of fine design, the Archive commissioned designer Sally At the suggestion of the Trustees, early McIntosh to produce a more compact family tree groundwork has been laid for the compiling of a with companion index, the two pieces housed in bibliography of published works by members of an elegant blue and gold case. the Rothschild family. With such a diverse range of interests, particularly in the field of science, it is recognised that this will be a long project, but methodologies are now being worked out and a database set up.

The Rothschild Family Tree

One small but significant part of the life of the Archive is the logging of births, deaths and marriages in the family in order to update from time to time the Rothschild family tree. The first fully researched tree was published by the late Victor, 3rd Lord Rothschild, in 1973 in a private edition with fine typography and a carefully structured system of identification for every individual. This was revised in 1988.

To mark the millennium, the Archive has now produced a second privately printed revision, incorporating changes in the intervening years. Research for the updating of the tree was led and, in large part, carried out by Lionel de Rothschild. The Rothschild Family Tree, 2000 edition

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The Cash Nexus: Banking and Politics in History

A lecture delivered by Professor Niall Ferguson of Oxford University, 30 April 2001

Although this lecture is invitation – to a rather gauche postgraduate over linked by both its title tea at the British consulate in 1986 – to come and and timing to the look at his father’s papers in the M. M. Warburg publication of my new offices in the Ferdinandstrasse. That was the book, The Cash Nexus – moment my interest in the history of the German which purports to be a inflation caught fire, because Max Warburg’s general history of papers revealed to me a world I had hitherto ‘money and power in scarcely glimpsed: the world of the haute banque, in the modern world’ – I which merchant bankers played a crucial yet would like to begin by discreet role in the interconnected worlds of saying a few words finance and politics. I had, of course, already about the more circumscribed work from which it learned much about this world from the classic grew, namely The World’s Banker: The History of the works of David Landes and Fritz Stern2. But the House of Rothschild.1 That book would have been part played by Max Warburg and other bankers in impossible to write without the cooperation, the the history of the Weimar Republic remained help and – perhaps crucially – the trust of the relatively obscure. Apart from the work of Harold Rothschild family, in particular Sir Evelyn de James, my predecessor at Peterhouse, and a few Rothschild, the late Amschel Rothschild, Lionel de allusions in Charles Maier’s book on the post-war Rothschild and Emma Rothschild, as well as period, there was nothing3. I had found my D. Phil. others too numerous to mention who patiently subject. endured my questions. It would have been impossible to research without the exemplary help The decision to take on the Rothschild history led of Victor Gray, Melanie Aspey and their staff at me to other shelves in the library, where I found the now gloriously re-housed Rothschild Archive. an alarmingly large number of excellent books And it would have been a far worse book without about bankers and politics in the 19th century by the wise counsel of David Landes, who became a – to name but a few – Youssef Cassis, Stanley kind of Doktorvater- cum-editor to the project; to Chapman, Phil Cottrell, Martin Daunton, David say nothing of the more practical done by Tony Kynaston and Dick Sylla. There was enough in Chapman, now a Director at N M Rothschild, and their work to make me realise that in taking on the Ion Trewin at Weidenfeld & Nicolson. It was history of Rothschilds I was taking on a huge task. Lord Weidenfeld himself who phoned me up Reading other bank histories – Richard Roberts’s nearly ten years ago to try to persuade me to take book on Schroders, Edwin Green’s on the Midland the project on, and to him I owe an especially and Philip Ziegler’s on Barings – helped me work large debt. As a keen student of ‘virtual’ or out how to go about doing it. Reading the older ‘counterfactual’ history, I am notoriously fond of books on the Rothschilds – with the honourable ‘what if?’ questions. But the one I really cannot exceptions of Egon Corti’s and Bertrand Gille’s4 – answer is what would have happened if he had not showed me how not to go about doing it. phoned me up one rainy afternoon all those years ago to suggest that I might write a history of the Yet after five years half living in the old Rothschilds. Rothschild Archive in Hatton Garden and writing what became, in effect, two books if not three, my Yet my interest in the history of banking and thirst for financial history had not been wholly politics predated that phone call by some years. It slaked. In particular, I wanted to see if the specific can probably be dated back to Eric Warburg’s relationships between finance and politics, which I

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had discovered in the Rothschild correspondence, Break the Bank! Dump the Debt!’ Nor are such held good at the general level. Thanks to the sentiments confined to anarchist and communist generosity of the Houblon-Norman Trustees and sects. Some Christian fundamentalist sites offer a particularly the Deputy Governor of the Bank of surprisingly similar critique of the financial sector. England, Mervyn King, I was able to go, as Ranke At www.biblebelievers.org.au/slavery.htm, for always said historians should, from the specific to example, you can read that ‘the Rothschilds and the general. For better or for worse, what began as their friends sent in their financial termites to a history of the bond market rapidly grew into destroy America because it was becoming something more ambitious – perhaps excessively so. “prosperous beyond precedent” ’.

For all its faults, however, I think The Cash Nexus There is something strangely familiar about the has done at least one of the things I set out to do. tone of all this, though it took me a little while to It has, I think, demonstrated exactly why financial recognise the authentic antecedent of that last history is relevant to political historians, while at expostulation. There are in fact at least six the same time showing the importance, and often references to the Rothschilds in the complete the primacy, of political events like wars and works of Karl Marx. Here he is on their role in revolutions in economic history. To those who say the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions: they knew this already, I can only offer my congratulations, and my apologies for boring them. The smallest financial reform was wrecked But they are, I think, in a minority. I have spent through the influence of the bankers. For example, more than a decade teaching history undergraduates the postal reform. Rothschild protested. Was it in Cambridge and Oxford, and I have yet to meet permissible for the state to curtail sources of one who did not need to have the links between revenue out of which interest was to be paid on finance and politics explained. Sometimes they its ever increasing debt? The July Monarchy was simply knew nothing. More often it was worse: nothing other than a joint stock company for the they knew something quite wrong. exploitation of France’s national wealth5.

The curious thing about Marx was that in many II ways he was as much a product of the emancipation of the Jews of south-western It is not entirely accidental that this lecture is Germany as the Rothschilds themselves. He taking place today rather than tomorrow. For admits as much, indeed, in a little-read footnote to tomorrow is 1 May – May Day – and we are told volume III of Capital, appended to a rather good to expect yet more ‘anti-capitalist’ demonstrations section on the nature of financial panics: in London. It will be, I read on the Internet, ‘a day of celebration for all those struggling against Immediately after the February Revolution, when capitalism and globalisation’. We are promised ‘lots commodities and securities were extremely of autonomous actions, separate yet interconnected, depreciated and utterly unsaleable, a Swiss which express our opposition to the monopoly merchant in Liverpool, Mr B. Zwilchenbart – who that capitalism has over our lives’. As I prepared told this to my father – cashed all his belongings, myself for the impending world revolution which travelled with cash in hand to Paris and sought this doubtless heralds, I could not help being out Rothschild, offering to participate in a joint struck by the fact that six out of the thirteen firms enterprise with him. Rothschild looked at him singled out on the website of the demonstration’s fixedly, rushed towards him, grabbed him by his organisers – www.maydaymonopoly.net – are shoulders and asked: “Avez-vous de l’argent sur banks. One bank in particular is singled out for the vous?” – “Oui, M. Le baron.” – “Alors vous êtes damning comment: ‘loan sharks with unethical mon homme!”6 investments – all banks steal’. Much as he wanted to hate capitalism, Marx could The Internet offers a good deal of this sort of thing. never quite conceal his enthusiasm for the bourse Go to www.destroyimf.org for example and you – to the extent that he himself briefly became a will encounter the rousing slogan: ‘Defund the Fund! ‘day-trader’ in 1864. Unfortunately, this side of his

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thought has seldom attracted the attention of those beginning of a new era for the Jewish nation’.9 Mr who call themselves Marxists. They have always Corzine, by contrast, was reported last year as preferred the ranting Marx, with his ferocious saying: ‘I have been able to access things that most denunciations of the ‘brood of bankocrats, people wouldn’t think possible for a small kid financiers, rentiers, brokers, stock-jobbers, etc.’7 And from out in the middle of nowhere. It worked out few beliefs have proved more enduring – on both really well for me. Why shouldn’t I want to help the left and the right of the political spectrum – others?’10 It may be that Mr Corzine sincerely sees than the belief in the sinister power of financiers: himself as acting to further the interests of all from the golden international that haunted the ‘small kids from out in the middle of nowhere’. American Populists a century ago to the gnomes But it is hard not to suspect that this was not his of Zürich Harold Wilson blamed for the 1967 prime motivation in seeking election. devaluation. All politicians need bank accounts, so there are naturally a great many bankers who have III politicians as their clients. Bleichröder’s now famous relationship with Bismarck was initially of But how much power do bankers really have? this nature. The same was true of Salomon Before attempting to answer this question, it is Rothschild’s earlier relationship with Prince helpful to begin by constructing a typology. Metternich.11 In the 19th century the correspondence between bankers and their politician clients could The majority of bankers have of course nothing easily extend from the discussion of cash flow whatever to do with politics. At the other extreme problems or investment advice to exchanges of are bankers who are political figures ex officio political news and even advice. Today, however, the because they are central bankers with statutory far more impersonal nature of financial relationships responsibilities. It is the categories in between makes it hard to imagine comparable relationships. those two poles that are of most interest here. Who looks after Tony Blair’s current account? I have no idea. I doubt very much that it matters. We need to distinguish as far as possible between: 1. Bankers who become politicians In the nineteenth century too social links between 2. Bankers who have politicians as clients politicians and bankers were of more importance 3. Bankers who merely socialise with politicians than they are in our own day. One prime minister, 4. Bankers who advise politicians the Earl of Rosebery, married a Rothschild. Those 5. Bankers who oppose politicians two great rivals, Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone, were both regular visitors and In the first category clearly belongs someone like correspondents of the family. Indeed, there is a Jon Corzine, the former co-Chairman and Chief delightful letter from Lionel from March 1876 Executive of Goldman Sachs Inc., who last year which describes how the two men almost bumped spent some £36.5 million in pursuit of a seat in the into one another at his house: ‘Dizzy was here … US Senate. There is a rough analogy which could [O]ur friend [is] in very good spirits … What do be drawn between Mr Corzine and Nathan you say to the visitor who is now with dear Ma Rothschild’s son Lionel, who undoubtedly made whilst I am writing – this I have just heard, that use of his huge personal wealth when campaigning the famous Mr Gladstone is with her drinking tea for election to the House of Commons in 1847. and eating bread and butter, I doubt whether he The difference is that Lionel de Rothschild’s will come to see me’.12 No doubt Gordon Brown object in seeking election was a great deal more has had occasion to drink tea with Gavyn Davies precise than Mr Corzine’s. In many ways, the of Goldman Sachs in much the same way. Yet no election of the former was a gambit in the amount of socialising can be regarded as protracted campaign to secure full political rights politically significant unless there is evidence that, for Jews in Britain. His brother called it ‘one of the over tea, the banker (or his wife) actually greatest triumphs for the Family as well as of the influenced the politician. Certainly, it is unlikely greatest advantage to the poor Jews in Germany that Charlotte de Rothschild exercised any and all over the world’.8 For his wife it was ‘the significant influence over Gladstone, who was far

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more interested to discuss comparative religion possible Austrian and Russian support. According with her. to James’s own account, he told Louis-Philippe:

The point at which socialising becomes advising is You are being pushed into a state of war, even not always easy to document. I have recently had though you have no interest in any Belgian occasion to consider the extent to which [territory] and is it wise for the French to take on Siegmund Warburg was able to influence Harold such a proud stance? And now do you want us to Wilson at the time of the sterling crisis of 1967. go ahead and declare war on the foreigners? Your Warburg had known Wilson since the late 1940s Majesty, you are being deceived. Your ministers and had impressed him with his usual combination have lost the confidence of the public. You should of flattery, international expertise and social appoint Périer and then these people, all the rich networking. As early as December 1963, Warburg people, will support him, and [that will] show offered specific advice to Wilson as to how to your strength.16 avert a run on the pound in the event of a Labour election victory, recommending a balanced Laffitte, he told his brother, was bent on a course budget, export incentives, some kind of wage of ‘complete anarchy’: restraint and ‘a severe profits distribution tax and possibly also … a capital levy’ on business.13 Once This morning I was at Laffitte’s and berated him, in power, Wilson saw Warburg on a number of and he said to me in a friendly way, ‘Rothschild, occasions to talk policy: for example, on 30 if France does not declare war on Austria, then, in November 1964, 7 January 1966, 5 September a matter of three weeks, the king will no longer be 1966. He also sent Wilson memoranda on king and will lose his head.’ I told him, how could economic subjects, like the one ‘about the he possibly give such bad advice to the king. He establishment of a closer link between British and replied to me, ‘The king no longer asks my foreign industrial companies’ in March 1967,14 and opinion’. In short, Laffitte thinks all is lost already. a draft speech a year later.15 The difficulty is to be Tomorrow, I will ask the king and perhaps I might sure whether Wilson heeded the advice he was even go to see him today.17 being offered. Even when there is evidence that the government acted in approximately the way It is tempting to conclude from the fact that Warburg suggested (for example, introducing Laffitte resigned just over a week later that James’s corporation tax in 1965), it is by no means clear ‘talking to the king had the desired effect’.18 Yet on that it was post hoc, ergo propter hoc. In recommending re-reading his letter of 27 February I am struck by higher taxation of business, was Warburg simply Laffitte’s admission: ‘Der König fragt mich nicht mehr’. telling them to do what they were going to In asking for Laffitte to be replaced, James was anyway? pushing at the proverbial half-open door.

Very similar problems arise when one tries to In fact, the only way to demonstrate for certain assess the influence James de Rothschild was able that a banker has political power is to look at to exercise over the French king Louis Philippe. instances of clear disagreement with a monarch or Many contemporaries – like Ludwig Börne and prime minister. Only if the banker can be shown Heinrich Heine – thought this was enormous. to have overruled the politician – and particularly Certainly, James saw a great deal of the King if it can be shown that he used financial leverage throughout his reign – much more than Siegmund to do so – can it really be claimed that the former Warburg saw of Harold Wilson. And he never wields meaningful power. I can think at once of tired of proffering advice to him – to discard this three examples from my own research of such minister, to appoint that minister and, above all, clear confrontations between a banker and a not to risk a war in Europe. In February 1831, for political figure. In 1832 Salomon von Rothschild example, James became convinced that the French overtly threatened not to support a new bond prime minister Laffitte was bent on war over the issue by the Austrian government if the proceeds future of the newly independent Belgium, then were to be used for military purposes.19 In 1866 his threatened by military invasion from Holland with brother James sought to use his power in the

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European bond markets to deter Bismarck from credit and ‘the delicate interdependence of going to war with Austria over the future of the international finance’ had made war irrational and duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.20 And in 1909 perhaps even impossible, since ‘no physical force the first Lord Rothschild launched an all-out can set at nought the force of credit’.24 Within less campaign against David Lloyd George’s so-called than five years, the European powers would People’s Budget.21 In all three cases, the bankers demonstrate how wrong such cheerful notions lost the argument. This was because not even the were. In July 1914 the desperate pleas of the Rothschilds at the very height of their power Rothschilds and the Warburgs that a European could turn off the tap of the bond market to a war would destroy ‘the delicate interdependence government that was fundamentally creditworthy. of international finance’ were simply ignored. Far In the last case, Natty Rothschild repeatedly from preventing war, the ‘force of credit’ made it warned that Lloyd George’s increase in progressive possible to fight war on a far larger scale than ever taxation would be financially ruinous; but the before and for far longer than most pre-war verdict of the markets, when one actually looks at financial experts – including John Maynard Keynes the effect of the People’s Budget on the price of – thought possible. consols, was quite clearly the opposite.22

Higher taxes would eliminate the government’s IV deficit, whether they fell on the rich or the poor; so it made sense to buy consols, not (as Rothschild On 21 June 1914, following a banquet in Hamburg, predicted) to sell. Here, as so often, individual the German Emperor Wilhelm II had outlined bankers might think and say one thing; but the what he saw as Germany’s ‘general situation’ to his collective voice of the market – the sum of the neighbour at dinner, Max Warburg: decisions of all the investors and their agents – said another. The Marxists and their progeny tend He was worried about the Russian armaments to blur this crucial distinction between the [programme and] about the planned railway individual banker as the supposed ‘man of construction; and detected [in these] the influence’ and the market as the institution in preparations for a war against us in 1916. He which the less obviously ‘influential’ investors complained about the inadequacy of the railway- have a say in proportion to the size of their links that we had at the Western Front against portfolios, credit-rating and trades. At the height France; and hinted ... [at] whether it would not be of the conflict over the People’s Budget, Lloyd better to strike now, rather than wait. George famously exclaimed: ‘Really, in all of these things we are having too much Lord Rothschild.’ Warburg had ‘advised decidedly against’ this: But in reality there was not enough Lord Rothschild seriously to threaten the Chancellor’s [I] sketched the domestic political situation in position. England for him (Home Rule), the difficulties for France of maintaining the three year service Yet even the markets have limits on their political period, the financial crisis in which France already leverage. In 1898 the Polish financier Ivan found itself, and the probable unreliability of the Stanislavovich Bloch had published a six-volume Russian army. I strongly advised [him] to wait magnum opus which appeared in English with the patiently, keeping our heads down for a few more snappier title Is War Now Impossible? Bloch argued years. ‘We are growing stronger every year; our that, in any major continental war, finance would enemies are getting weaker internally’.25 be ‘the dominant and decisive element in the matter’, bringing the hostilities to a swift Why did the Kaiser ignore Warburg’s advice, conclusion. ‘The future of war’, Bloch argued, was which to us seems eminently sensible? The answer ‘not the slaying of men, but the bankruptcy of is that his military experts – from the Chief of the nations’.23 He was not alone in thinking this. In The General Staff downwards – were telling him just Great Illusion, published in 1910, Norman Angell the opposite. In a few more years, the Younger claimed that ‘the profound change effected by Moltke insisted, Russia would have completed her

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armaments programme and Germany’s chances of independence to the Bank of England in 1997. But winning a two-front war would have dwindled to he remains firmly convinced that the state has a zero. It was the enemy that was growing stronger, role to play in the financial sector. For example, Germany that was getting weaker. From the he shows no sign of ending the fiction that our Kaiser’s point of view, Warburg did not know National Insurance payments are contributions to what he was talking about. A hundred years ago, a fund from which we will therefore be entitled, if there was a fairly clear distinction between what a need be, to draw future benefits. Indeed, when he banker could be expected to have expertise about announced plans earlier this year for a new ‘baby and what were only matters of general knowledge. bond’ he sounded remarkably like the Chief A banker knew about budgets and bonds. His Executive of a High Street bank trying to drum up views on the reliability of the Russian army – no business with a new product. matter how well informed – were about as valuable as Moltke’s views on bimetallism. That distinction still exists today, of course. Still, the V extent to which economics has extended its domain in the course of the century makes the A key question addressed in The Cash Nexus gulf between financial and political expertise a relates directly to this convergence of finance and good deal smaller than it was then. When Lionel politics: ‘Is politics becoming just a special kind of de Rothschild first stood for parliament, his business?’ That implies a further question, with brother urged him to take a radical position on which I would like to conclude this lecture. Can free trade. The implication was that up until that political history be studied separately from financial point Lionel had not given free trade a great deal history? The answer should, I feel sure, be no. Yet of thought. Nowadays, by contrast, it would be even as politics and economics have converged in surprising to find a senior director in a major City the past century, so the disciplines of political and firm who did not already have a view on whether financial history have diverged. This is, no doubt, Britain should join the single European currency an inevitable consequence of the academic – the issue which most resembles (not least in its penchant for specialisation. But specialisation can political divisiveness) that of free trade in the be a vice as well as a virtue if it excessively narrows 1840s. the scope of scholarly inquiry. I am firmly convinced that, like Humpty Dumpty, modern There is another way of considering the difference history needs to be put back together again. Those between the past and the present. In 1901 banking who study elections must think also about bond and politics were two essentially separate markets; those who specialise in warfare need also activities, though they were socially linked.26 Today to understand exchange rates. The battle of the two professions seem to me to be rather Stalingrad is a thrilling subject, no doubt; but in socially distinct. The extent of traffic to and fro order fully to appreciate its significance for the between the Commons and the City boardrooms outcome of the Second World War, it may be has declined markedly in the past decade. Yet necessary to look at the quotations of German their functions have converged in ways that the bonds in Switzerland before and after it.27 Certainly, Edwardians would have found extraordinary. Most it can only be by studying such connections modern bankers are accountable to a far wider between the financial and the political that we will range of shareholder interests than was the case a be able to arrive at a true understanding of the hundred years ago; while at the same time they power – so often exaggerated – of bankers. There are providing an ever wider range of financial is indeed a ‘cash nexus’ linking the realms of services. Politicians too are more widely accountable money and power but it is a much more tangled than they were in 1901; but what is perhaps more knot than Marx and his followers liked to think. If surprising is that they are also engaged in my work can do anything to convince people of providing a range of financial services. To be sure, that, and thereby to promote the reintegration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer did a very wise history as a discipline, then it will have achieved thing when he restored partial (‘operational’) its chief goal.

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Notes

1 The World’s Banker: A History of the House of Rothschild establishment of a closer link between British and foreign (London, 1998) industrial companies', 14 March 1967

2 David S. Landes, Bankers and pashas: International finance 15 Siegmund Warburg papers, box 21, draft speech for and economic imperialism in Egypt (London, 1958); Fritz Harold Wilson, 5 March 1968 Stern, Gold and iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder and the building of the German Empire (Harmondsworth, 1987) 16 RAL, XI/109J/J/31, James, Paris, to Nathan, London, Feb. 21, 1831. Cf. Feb. 22; Feb. 24; Feb. 25 3 Harold James, The Reichsbank and Public Finance in Germany 1924-1933: A Study of the Politics of Economics during the 17 RAL, XI/109J/J/31, James, Paris, to Nathan, London, Feb. Great Depression (Frankfurt, 1985); Charles S. Maier, 27, 1831. Cf. RAL, XI/10919/1/40, Lionel to his parents, Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilisation in France, Germany and Feb. 25; RAL, XI/109/20/1/3, same to same, March 1 Italy in the Decade after World War I (Princeton, 1975) 18 RAL, XI/109J/J/31, James, Paris, to Nathan, London, 4 Count Corti, The Rise of the House of Rothschild (London, March 9, 1831 1928); The Reign of the House of Rothschild (London, 1928); Histoire de la Maison Rothschild Bertrand Gille, , vol. I: Des 19 The incident is discussed in The World’s Banker, chapter 9 origines à 1848 (Geneva, 1965); vol. II: 1848–70 (Geneva, 1967) 20 See chapter 20 5 Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850 21 See chapter 29 6 Karl Marx, Capital, vol. III, part 5, chapter 29 22 I owe this insight to my former student Edward Lipman 7 Karl Marx, Capital, vol. I, chapter 31 23 I.S. Bloch, Is War Now Impossible? being an abridgment of ‘The War of the Future in its Technical, Economic and Political 8 RAL, XI/109/62/1/2, Nat, Paris, to Lionel, London, Relations’ (London, 1899), p. lx undated, c. July 1847 24 Norman Angell, The great illusion: A study of the relation of 9 RAL, T7/129, Charlotte, Paris, to Lionel, London, military power to national advantage (London, 1913 edn.), p. undated, c. Aug. 1847 209

Daily Telegraph 10 , 25 October 2000 24 M. M. Warburg & Co., Hamburg, Max Warburg Papers, ‘Jahresbericht 1914’; cf. Max M. Warburg, Aus meinen 11 See my ‘Metternich and the Rothschilds: "A Dance with Aufzeichnungen, (printed privately), p. 29 Torches on Powder Kegs"?’ in Leo Baeck Yearbook (forthcoming) 25 See Youssef Cassis, English City bankers, 1890–1914 (Cambridge/New York, 1994) 12 RAL, T12/57, Lionel, London, to Leo and Leonora, 25 March 1876 26 See Bruno S. Frey and Marcel Kucher, 'History as Reflected in Capital Markets: The Case of World War II', 13 Siegmund Warburg papers, box 10, SGW note, 'Dinner Journal of Economic History, (2000), 468-96 with Harold Wilson on 5th December', 9 Dec. 1963 27 See Bruno S. Frey and Marcel Kucher, 'History as 14 Siegmund Warburg papers, box 18, SGW to Michael Reflected in Capital Markets: The Case of World War II', Halls for Harold Wilson, 'Thinking aloud about the Journal of Economic History, (2000), 468-96

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‘Up to our noses in smoke’ Richard Schofield records the results of a project to explore how The Rothschild Archive can throw light on the often forgotten role of Rothschilds as traders in commodities - in this case, tobacco

from the tobacco business seems to be in the mid- 19th century. The ‘Tobacco Account’ that features in the Home Ledger series3 runs, with breaks, from 1842-1891, with a turnover of £89,193.18.5 in 1846. This is in marked contrast to the final entries, for 1890 and 1891, which are for £3032.31.0 and £1545.49.0 respectively. By the beginning of the 20th century the trade appears to have ceased altogether.

The evidence would suggest that all the Rothschild houses were involved in tobacco trading, both privately and for various governments. This is unsurprising, as the 19th century tobacco market was potentially very profitable. The governments of many European countries, notably France, Spain and the Italian states, kept a tight hold on the trade through state controlled monopolies. Companies submitted bids to government bodies to win the contract as exclusive suppliers of tobacco to the state. This tobacco was then It is unclear exactly when the Rothschild houses processed only in government owned factories. first began to take a serious interest in the tobacco The French government had ‘manufacturies’ in trade. The first mention found is in a letter from Paris, Havre, Bordeaux, Marseilles and Morlaix, Harman and Co. of London, who write to N M while the Spanish government had five in the Rothschild & Sons in 1810, ‘Annexed we hand for Philippines and several Royal Tobacco companies your information an extract of a letter from our across Spain. The length of time for which correspondent in Philadelphia to whom we successful bidders would hold the supply committed your order for tobacco and cotton…’.1 monopoly varied from country to country. The However, it was probably not until the 1830s that French Régie held tobacco auctions annually, any real push was made to develop trade in this whereas the Spanish would grant contracts for a commodity, and it was not until after 1840 that longer period but would pay only a fixed price, tobacco trading took on a great importance as a often set very low. There were also strict guidelines commercial activity. Indeed, James de Rothschild as to the quality and quantity of tobacco required. writes to Anthony in September 1839, ‘For the moment I am not considering the tobacco business The Paris house, de Rothschild Frères, was often at all, because I think it is a little too much to successful in securing the French monopoly. spend 25 millions…’.2 Entry to the Cuban market While there is frequent mention, in the was later still, as it is not until 11 December 1845 correspondence of American agents, of other that Rothschilds’ appointed agent, Scharfenberg, buyers acting for the French Régie, the writes, ‘I have been favoured with your letter of Rothschilds’ New York based agent, Belmont, the 31 Oct.,… transmitting me the following order writes in December 1840, ‘The Paris House has for a beginning in the tobacco business…’. The fared very well indeed for its order for cotton and majority of the correspondence relating to tobacco tobacco and must realise a very considerable profit dates from the 1840s and the greatest turnover on both’.4

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From the mid-1840s, the Rothschilds also held for cover to Imperial and Royal Manufacturers of a time the monopolies for the Neapolitan and Tobacco at Vienna…’. That these samples were Sardinian Régies. It is likely that this was an part of a bigger undertaking is borne out in the initiative of the Paris House. In 1839 James de volumes making up the Tobacco Invoices and Rothschild writes to his nephews in Paris, ‘I am Account Sales series.12 Here, between January 1844 most interested in the Italian Tobacco Monopoly, and February 1849, can be found accounts for especially since I inspected the accounts and saw contracts with the Austrian Tobacco Régie and the large amounts of profit’. A letter to Hanau, in the Imperial Royal Tobacco Administration of the American Letter Copy Book5 series, of 11 Vienna, the latter for 2,000,000 Manila Cheroots. March 1844, mentions the need for, ‘1000 to 1500 Hhds of Kentucky leaf tobacco for the supply of our transactions with the Naples Régie’. A contract from 1850 with C. M. Rothschild & Sons also exists for the supply of leaf tobacco to the Royal Manufactory in Naples and a letter of September 1848 refers to a contract with the Naples House ‘to supply these quantities to the Sardinian government’.6 A letter to Scharfenberg, Rothschilds’ agent in Havana, again from the American Letter Copy Books, speaks, in November 1864, of a contract for a large sale to the Naples Tobacco Administration.

Another key area was Spain. Weisweiller and Bauer, Rothschilds’ Spanish agents, obtained for Rothschilds a share in the Compañia Arrendataria Tobacco ledgers from The Rothschild Archive de Tabacos, a company founded in June 1887 by the Banco de España to manage the revenue from Aside from the more obvious destinations for tobacco products and stamps. This is borne out by tobacco cargoes, correspondence from the an entry in the Share Accounts volumes7 for July American Letter Copy Books shows that 1887, for Spanish Tobacco Shares.8 The Home Rothschilds were trading further afield. The Ledgers series9 contains an even earlier entry of volume that spans 1847-1848 has a letter 1845-1846 for ‘Tobacco Spanish Co.’. A pencil addressed to F. C. Gasser, Rothschilds’ agent in St. note identifies this as ‘Empresa de Tabaco Lign at Petersburg, dated 17 December 1847, which talks Madrid’ (sic). of a tobacco cargo destined for this city. Two later letters, dated 16 December 1864, addressed to There is also evidence of dealings with Austria Chieves & Osborne and R. Ragland (both of and Gille10 states that correspondence from the Petersburg, Virginia, U.S.A.), state, ‘Our market is archives of the French House also makes mention without change, but the advices from Australia are of Austrian deals. Austria actually grew its own rather better, and we hope to make some sales of tobacco and banned imports. However, Corti11 your tobacco’. Thus it would seem that the mentions a deal in the 1840s made by Salomon tobacco business spread beyond the confines of von Rothschild with the Austrian government, by central Europe. which he imported and sold 10,000,000 Havana cigars and gave the state a large proportion of the The profitable nature of the tobacco trade meant profits. The venture was so successful that a repeat competition for government contracts was fierce order for 17,500,000 was sent off immediately. and evidence gleaned from correspondence would There is also evidence to suggest that Rothschilds suggest that the French banker Pescatore was managed to obtain further concessions as, on 26 Rothschilds’ greatest rival in this respect. He is June 1849, Scharfenberg writes of ‘…samples first mentioned in a copy of a letter out to Hanau which are directed as you will observe under the in an American Letter Copy Book, which

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mentions an order for 1600 to 1700 hogsheads of parts of Tennessee particularly they raise a fine tobacco (some 2,206,000 pounds) ‘…for the sort of bright long and fine leaf just fit for the contract with the French Régie…’. It goes on to French Régie’. He goes on to say that he has state, ‘…from the nature of Pescatore’s engagement induced the Paris House to bid for this crop. we think his operations are not likely to interfere Later, on 17 October 1843, he writes ‘…the much with us’. This does not seem to have been quality of the tobacco of the Saxony was not the case with the Neopolitan contract, Carl suitable at all for the French Régie; it contained writing to his nephews in 1847, ‘I have received only dark and heavy leaf and was only convenient both your letters of July 15th referring to the for Naples’. tobacco transaction; I am going to wait for inspiration from God. Pescatore and Guillot can likewise be expected to make a bid…’.13 However, cooperation appears to have been forced upon the two rivals by the Spanish administration. An outgoing letter of 18 April 1844 addressed to Hanau, regarding an order for the Spanish Tobacco Company, states that ‘…the orders of the said company are divided between us and Pescatores, and… Lanfear’s purchases will have to compete with those of Koch [Pesacatore’s agent]…’. Rothschilds’ desire for snatching the entire contract is also evident. Hanau is urged to buy the best tobacco he can as this ‘…will not only retain the present participation in the Company’s orders, but may secure the whole of the business which would give us great advantages in contracting your market’. A Cuban tobacco factory, 1873

The biggest tobacco producers were found in In order to ensure a reliable supply of tobacco to Virginia, Kentucky and Maryland, U.S.A. and fulfil their contracts and to obtain the best prices Havana, Cuba; the latter better known for its cigar it was necessary to have local agents, acquainted manufacturers. Indeed, Carl Scharfenberg, with the market, acting for the houses. To this Rothschilds’ agent in Havana, goes into end, Rothschilds appointed a number of figures to considerable detail about the process for grading oversee the business for them. Some were and selling tobacco for the production of cigars. established agents, whereas others were He also writes that of the Cubans, ‘men, women commissioned solely to oversee the tobacco and children’ all smoke cigars, keeping the best business. They, in turn, commissioned local tobacco back for themselves. He continues, ‘…the tobacco brokers to select tobacco and cigars for second best qualities are sent to England and the house. As has already been demonstrated, all thirds to Germany and fourths to France’. This wrote to London and Paris on a regular basis, seems odd when he notes that France is importing informing the Houses of the state of the crops and 60,000,000 cigars a year, but he goes on to state, market and any cargoes sent. However, even ‘the reason for this is because in Germany and reputable agents could do little if there was no France the light coloured cigars are preferred, but tobacco to be bought and no means of shipping they are wrong in thinking the light cigars ‘the that which was available. Scharfenberg regularly best’, because it is only the dark coloured…which had trouble chartering ships from Cuba and the is the best quality’. This variance in the type of interruption to trade by the American Civil War tobacco demanded by different states was also was significant. The firm of Chieves and Osborne evident in the United States’ market. Hanau’s write to N M Rothschild & Sons in May 1861, reports make interesting reading in this respect. ‘We have a large quantity of tobacco for your On 22 September 1843, he writes that ‘…in some House now ready, but cannot ship it and do not

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know when it can be shipped. If you can or will ensure they get the best prices. Indeed, send us a ship (small tonnage) loaded with salt, we Scharfenberg’s advice seems to have been crucial will in return send you a cargo of manufactured to the development of Rothschilds’ Cuban dealings tobacco…’.14 The same firm notes in June 1862, and is further proof of the value of local ‘Our planters are making corn and meat instead of knowledge. On 10 April 1847, following news that cotton and tobacco and until the war is over will Rothschilds are thinking of pulling out of the not grow either’.15 Cuban tobacco market, Scharfenberg writes, ‘Allow me to tell you that this plan is not the The growth in Rothschilds’ tobacco business proper one to make money by this business; you would appear to be the motivation behind sending ought to enter every year with an equal quantity Hanau out to New Orleans. In 1842, Nathaniel de and sell, even with a loss, that part of your former Rothschild writes to his brothers, ‘If we are purchases, which might be exposed to successful candidates at the adjudication… we deterioration’. He goes on to state that most shall in all probability send young Hanau to New Cuban tobacco will keep two or three years and Orleans. He will do very well to superintend the thus when there is a bad crop any stored tobacco Tobacco purchases and can be trusted with can be sold and ‘…the higher prices you then money’.16 This is confirmed in a letter to Lionel of fetch will compensate your losses on former December 1842, signed by James de Rothschild, purchases’. The Spanish agents, Weisweiller and which states, ‘Our offer re American tobacco was Bauer, were also key to the successful tobacco too high and for this reason Brown, Shipley and business with Spain. In January 1847, Weisweiller Co. in Liverpool were successful. Taking this into writes, ‘The cunning and greedy director of the consideration I think it is important for us to have Spanish tobacco agency has advised several someone in New Orleans, who could send us importers to bring in these cargoes in order to reliable information…. Had we had someone benefit from the concurrence, as regards the price. trustworthy there, on whose communications we He has promised to give me preference…’.19 Later, could have relied, we should not have been so during the late 1880s, the agents keep Rothschilds timid in our offer. I recommend sending young apprised of the passage of Spain’s Tobacco Hanau and would like your opinion’.17 This letter Leasing Bill and the ramifications of the increasing shows clearly the highly competitive nature of the monopolisation of the country’s tobacco trade. tobacco trade and the need for fine judgement when pitching prices for lots. Ironically enough, While Rothschilds relied heavily on their agents Rothschilds’ problems seem to have been in the localities, it is also evident that family exacerbated by Hanau’s own agent, Lanfear. members spent time investigating the tobacco Hanau remarks in July 1844 that Lanfear trade in some detail for themselves. For example, inadvertently causes prices to rise as it is known Nathaniel writes to his brothers from the United he is buying for Rothschilds. He therefore suggests States early in January 1844, ‘We have been taking on another agent to buy ‘slowly and occupying ourselves with your tobacco cautiously’ so as not to affect the markets. By 1877, calculations and are doubtful what we shall do. I R. B. Mannion, another American agent, notes that think we shall make up our minds to bid only for buyers for the French market are by far the the Maryland; perhaps for Virginia, but at a biggest contingent and other European buyers are remunerating price only. We have also got the unable to compete.18 Hungarian tobacco man here, so that altogether we are up to our noses in smoke. It is a pity old Competition for the best tobacco was not restricted Bill [Anthony] is not here, as he is really the baccy only to the United States. Scharfenberg, the agent man’20. There are also letters concerning tobacco, in Cuba, notes that ‘many London houses’ are in the American Letter Copy Books, from Mayer represented there. He goes on to say that this Alphonse de Rothschild of the Paris House, during means local cigar manufacturers are fickle and his visit to the United States in 1848. hold out for higher prices and makes the recommendation that Rothschilds put their broker This survey of the documentary evidence for into competition ‘with another or two or three’ to Rothschilds’ tobacco business can certainly not be

REVIEW OF THE YEAR APRIL 2000-MARCH 2001 19 508964AR.CHI 8/23/02 12:19 PM Page 20

viewed as exhaustive. There is scope for further considerable time, energy and resources. It also exploration, particularly into the large amounts of, demonstrates the scope, in terms of surviving as yet untouched, agency correspondence, much evidence, for a thorough investigation into of it in Spanish, German and Judendeutsch. Rothschilds’ trade in commodities in general, a Already, however, the project paves the way for facet of their work which, perhaps overshadowed research into what was, during the mid-19th by their better known activities in the issue of century, a significant and profitable area of government loans, has been largely ignored to business and one into which was poured date by historians.

Notes

1 T4/34 11 Count Corti, The Reign of The House of Rothschild 2 T35/61 (London, 1928), p. 232 3 VI/10/26-99 12 II/81/0-7 4 XI/62/1/1/233 13 T7/126 5 II/10/0-111 14 T6/346 6 XI/4/13-14 15 T6/378 7 I/32/1-2 16 T24/157; XI/109/43A/2/154 8 There is also an entry for ‘Turkish Tobacco Shares’ from 17 T24/158; 0XI/109/43A/3/52 1888-1889, but it is unclear to what this refers. 18 XI/38/172 9 VI/10/26-99 19 T6/189 10 Bertrand Gille, Histoire de la Maison Rothschild vol. I: Des 20 T18/226; XI/109/46/1/67 origines à 1848 (Geneve, 1965), p. 417

Sources

Accounts

Share Accounts, 1870-1916 I/32/1-2, 2 volumes This series records the shares in government and railways stocks held jointly by N M Rothschild & Sons and de Rothschild Frères. Volume 2 is of interest as it contains an account for ‘Spanish Tobacco Shares’, from July 1887. This account only shows movement of stock until 1889. Volume 2 also has an account for ‘Turkish Tobacco Shares’, running from 1888-1889, which were bought in Berlin. This is duplicated in the Home Ledger series (below).

American Accounts, 1831-1918 II/3/0-50, 51 volumes Although there are 51 volumes in this series, the two that are of significance for tobacco business are 9 and 11, concerned with British companies dealing with American imports.

Tobacco Invoices and Account Sales, 1844-1891 II/81/0-7, 8 volumes There are a number of companies represented within these volumes although trade seems to have been dominated by a few key brokers. Most notable among these are George Scholey and Clagett Brachi & Co. Scholey’s name also appears in the correspondence from various agents, American and Cuban (see below), as a trusted tobacco broker.

Home Ledgers, 1836-1918 VI/10/26-99, 74 volumes This series is a continuation of the General Ledgers series, beginning in the year in which the foreign series was established separately. There is a separate index to each volume.

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Correspondence

American Letter Copy Books, 1834-1918 II/10/0-111, 112 volumes Copies of outgoing letters relating to American business survive from 1834, with an index of correspondents within each volume. The earliest volumes relate to just a few agents and concern routine remittance business. After 1837, letters to August Belmont, initially in German, appear frequently. There are also letters to Tolmé, the agent in Havana. As with the other correspondence series, the numbers of letters to those agents dealing chiefly in tobacco fall away during the 1850s.

Tobacco Business, 1844-1853 X1/4/13-14, 1 box This is a gathering of miscellaneous documents relating to Rothschilds’ tobacco trading, chiefly with France and Naples.

Hanau, J. N., 1843-1848 XI/38/130, 2 boxes Hanau was based in New Orleans, from where most of his letters were sent, apart from a few from Memphis or Louisville. Hanau reports on the tobacco trade and advises N M Rothschild & Sons accordingly It seems that Hanau instructed Lanfear (see below) on tobacco purchases. There is also evidence to suggest that Hanau was in contact with N M Rothschild & Son’s Spanish agent Weisweiller (see below), through the London house. It is therefore possible that he was buying, on Weisweiller’s instruction, for the Spanish market.

Lanfear, Ambrose & Co., 1841-1855 XI/38/164, 1 box This firm, mentioned frequently in the correspondence of J. N. Hanau, bought and shipped tobacco and cotton on account of N M Rothschild & Sons from its base in New Orleans. Lanfear comments on the market and the condition of the crops and gives general financial reports. It can be inferred from his correspondence that he was undertaking to fulfil Spanish contracts for the Paris House. He was also shipping tobacco to Antwerp and charging to the Paris House through N M Rothschild & Sons, and it would seem he had dealings with the Frankfurt House too.

Mannion, R. B., 1867-1873 XI/38/172, 2 boxes A firm based in New Orleans, whose services to N M Rothschild & Sons included shipping tobacco. The letters include details of transfers to the Paris Rothschild account and comments on the quality of tobacco, although the main dealings are in cotton and bills of exchange.

Scharfenberg, Tolmé & Co., 1845-1873 XI/38/217-19, 6 boxes The correspondence to 1845 is from Carl Scharfenberg alone, the former clerk in the Paris House and Rothschild Agent in Havana. From 1855 the letters are from Scharfenberg, Tolmé & Co. Scharfenberg describes the Cuban sugar business in great detail and, in less detail, the tobacco business. However, these are by far the most informative of the letters series that concern trade in tobacco, outlining the process by which tobacco is graded and sold. There is also information on the production of cigars.

Weisweiller and Bauer, 1881-1892 XI/92/0-5, 13 boxes This series of private letters is full of political and social comment, providing a vivid description of life in Spain during the period. All of Rothschilds' business interests in Spain and the Spanish colonies – railways, quicksilver, government bonds and tobacco - are discussed.

T Files (XI/109) The so-called T Files are, chiefly, transcripts of correspondence between Rothschild family members, those from the XI/109 series being the private correspondence of the five brothers. This series is central to an understanding of Rothschilds’ business in the 19th century. The series also contains letters from Weisweiller and Bauer, Scharfenberg and other agents. Consequently, there is also some discussion of the tobacco trade, although this does not feature as frequently as one might hope.

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Rothschild in the news Melanie Aspey explains how one of this year’s acquisitions helped the Archive to fulfil its aim of providing in its London searchroom access to collections from around the world of relevance to Rothschild history

The Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, (StuB), in large. In the 1880s and 1890s, the deaths of Mayer Frankfurt am Main houses the former Carl von Carl and his widow, Louise, were widely reported Rothschild Free Public Library, one of its with detailed biographies and descriptions of their founding constituents.* This library, based on the political and social activities. By contrast, the collection of Mayer Carl von Rothschild (1820- closure of the Frankfurt House in 1901, while 1886), was opened to the public by his heirs in noted in dozens of papers throughout the world, 1888 and used the English free library system as a generated relatively little interest beyond the model. The collecting policy of the librarian, Carl simplest of statements. Berghoeffer, built on the strengths of the holdings, which might be termed ‘arts and humanities’ – art, The Press reports have often provided the architecture, literature, philology, geography etc. Archive with previously unknown information, Additionally he collected works by or about the enabling gaps in our knowledge to be filled. As an Rothschild family – much as the Archive does - example, one week at the end of January and and subscribed to a newspaper cuttings service, beginning of February 1908 produced reports about which ensured that a copy of every ‘Rothschild’ the International Conference on Marine Motoring article appearing in the international press was and a meeting of the Alliance Assurance Company, sent to the Frankfurt library where it was pasted both of which took place in London on the same into an enormous ledger. These cuttings, covering day and were attended by Lionel de Rothschild, the period from 1886 to 1928, were of interest to an enthusiast for motorboats, and Natty, 1st Lord us in the Archive, since they provide a Rothschild, respectively. A couple of days later, chronological narrative of Rothschild activities some sea elephants went on display at the Walter during this time. Rothschild Museum at Tring and in Vienna the premises of the Nathaniel von Rothschild Hospital, The reports give a good indication of the shifting for the treatment of patients with nervous diseases, impact of the Rothschild family on the world at were extended. On 7 February Lord Rothschild

The interior of the Carl von Rothschild Free Library, recorded in the ‘Neue Kleine Presse’, Frankfurt, 1892

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laid the foundation stone of a new wing of the simultaneously making more widely available a Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital. valuable collection and helping to conserve fragile original material. The volumes of cuttings have been used extensively by researchers in Frankfurt and we This collection is one of the largest that the considered that the collection would be of Archive has acquired so far as part of its continuing significant use to both archivists and researchers in initiative to identify and acquire Rothschild- the Archive’s London searchroom. With the related information from other repositories. support of the Director of the StuB, the collection Valuable on its own merits, it also helps us to of fragile volumes was microfilmed and this identify organisations with which the family were version is now available in Frankfurt and London. connected, and which might also hold records of This partnership project has served the purposes interest to us. of both the Rothschild Archive and the StuB,

*The Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek is at Bockenheimer Landstr. 134-138, 60325 Frankfurt am Main (http://www.stub.uni-frankfurt.de)

List of the Microfilms

000/838 - Microfilm of the newspaper cuttings collection from the Carl von Rothschild Library

Reel 1 1886-1894/I - 1895/III/582 Reel 2 1895/IV 583 - 1895 I/1168 Reel 3 1896 I/1169 - 1896 III/1741 Reel 4 1897 I/1742 - 1898 I/2326 Reel 5 1898 I 2327 - 1899 I/2905 Reel 6 1899 I/2906 - 1901/3486 Reel 7 1901/3487 - 1902-1903 I/4044 Reel 8 1902-1903 I/4045 - 1905-1906 I/4630 Reel 9 1905-1906 I/4631 - 1907-1908/5211 Reel 10 1907-1908/5212 - 1919/5782 Reel 11 1910/5783 - 1912/6369 Reel 12 1912/6370 - 1914-1916/6949 Reel 13 1890-1928/6950 - 1890-1928/7135

The final reel is a collection of cuttings about the library itself

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Charles Stuart and the Secret Service Dr Robert Franklin is a retired psychiatrist who became interested in Charles Stuart some years ago and published a biography of him. Since then he has returned to his research in order to satisfy his curiosity and produce a further book about Stuart’s secret activities, not all of which were in the public service. His research led him eventually to The Rothschild Archive

CHARLES STUART corner. Duff Cooper, in his biography of Talleyrand, was the grandson of characterised it as ‘a cloak-and-dagger period’.6 John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, George III’s favourite, and the son of General Sir Charles Stuart, a distinguished soldier. He was a diplomat, whose career began as the Napoleonic Wars began, and ended, to all intents and purposes, when the Revolution of 1830 abruptly ended the Restoration of the Bourbons. He spent the years of the Napoleonic Wars on the continent of Europe, and the years of the Restoration of the Bourbons in Paris. He was British Ambassador at Paris from 1815 to 1824 and again from 1828 to 1830.

Stuart’s papers, which are scattered among a number of archives,1 show that he was often engaged in secret work, and that he had dealings with the Rothschilds over many years. During those years, the Rothschilds were operating a system for the collection and transmission of intelligence with which no government could compete for efficiency, so that in any project of research into Stuart’s activities The Rothschild Archive is a natural resource. Legend has it that Charles Stuart, Lord Stuart de Rothesay by Francois-Pascal-Simon the Rothschilds bribed General Grouchy to desert Gérard, c.1828-30 (Courtesy of The V&A Picture Library) Napoleon at Waterloo,2 and that one of Stuart’s servants delivered the bribe,3 but the first evidence As soon as Stuart arrived in Paris he began to set of a link between Stuart and the Rothschilds to be up his own intelligence service. An English lady found in The Rothschild Archive is a note dated visiting at the time remarked: ‘He discovers what September 1817.4 others are about or would be about to a degree that must be very useful to him in his situation’.7 The Restoration of the Bourbons after Waterloo His chief concerns at first were the safety of the was the period during which Stuart and the Duke of Wellington and the stability of the new Rothschilds had most to do with each other. It regime; but when the Duke had returned to began with the return of Louis XVIII to Paris, England and Louis XVIII had shown himself accompanied by Stuart, who had been accredited settled on the throne there were other matters to to his Court in exile at Ghent and cannily stuck engage his attention, particularly certain aspects of to him until acknowledged as Ambassador at Paris.5 French foreign policy. He employed agents and It was a period of great political tension, intrigue informers, and despatches based on their reports and paranoia; plots and conspiracies abounded, went regularly and frequently to the Foreign and spies and special agents lurked round every Office.8

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His intelligence service was funded through an Rothschilds had a better system for the collection account at Coutts & Co. in London, called his and transmission of intelligence than had the ‘Separate Account’ to distinguish it innocently Foreign Office or the Diplomatic Service, it seems from a personal account at the bank.9 Amounts likely that there was co-operation between paid into the ‘Separate Account’ were transferred ambassador and bankers in this particular field. to an account at Bagenault & Co., in Paris, from Unfortunately, the Archive throws little light on which agents and informers were paid.10 the subject; but there is, in the collection, one Sometimes payments were made directly from the letter that seems significant. ‘Separate Account’, as was the case in 1817 and 1818 when relatively large amounts were paid to This letter was addressed to Nathan, in London, the veteran operator Quentin Craufurd.11 Years by John Charles Herries, Financial Secretary to earlier, most of Britain’s military intelligence from the Treasury, in November 1823. The two men the continent had come from Craufurd and his knew each other well: they could reasonably be two nephews.12 described as having been unofficial business partners.19 Frederick Robinson was then Chancellor The Rothschild Archive shows that Stuart was of the Exchequer. useful to the Rothschilds. They were concerned, first and foremost with their business: national and Mr Robinson desires I will state to you that Sir Charles international politics were important to them; and Stuart is in want of a sum of between five and six scarcely less so were their relationships with men thousand pounds at Paris, and I am to request you to of influence in the countries of Europe. There are place this sum at Sir Charles’ disposal and to inform you letters in the Archive that refer, for instance, to that it will be replaced about the month of April next. Stuart’s opinion on the affairs of Spain and The sum in question is required to defray the expenses Portugal, of which countries he had personal of repairs to the Ambassador’s home at Paris.20 knowledge,13 and to access through him to Wellington.14 One of the same letters suggests that There was nothing to make anybody think twice the Rothschilds might expect to benefit from about it, and that was probably as had been Stuart’s influence in certain negotiations with the intended. But ‘the sum in question’, a large one, French Government.15 was paid into Stuart’s ‘Separate Account’ at Coutts & Co., his secret service account.21 It can be inferred In return, the Rothschilds were helpful to Stuart. that this was a put-up job, arranged to finance We know that he was able to make use of their some clandestine operation approved at a high courier service,16 though we do not know to what level. Since Nathan was close to Herries, it can be extent. We know, too, that intelligence obtained inferred, too, that he was privy to the arrangement. by them was sometimes shared with him. In April 1822, for instance, information from James enabled Disappointed researchers in secret areas do well to him to assure the Foreign Secretary, Lord remember Castlereagh’s famous reply to a Member Castlereagh, that a crisis in relations between of Parliament who questioned him on the subject Russia and Turkey had passed. James, in Paris, of secret service money. If the honourable member had had this information from Salomon, in Vienna, wished to know how much had been spent on the and he had had it from Metternich, the Austrian secret service recently, he was welcome to the Chancellor, whose authority for it was Tsar information, said the Foreign Secretary; ‘but if he Alexander.17 It is clear from letters in The wished to know the particular details of how it Rothschild Archive that the brothers were helpful was expended, it was rather an Irish proposition, to Stuart financially, indirectly if not directly.18 for then it would be secret service money no longer’.22 Too much must not be expected. What does The Rothschild Archive tell us about Nevertheless, as research in The Rothschild Stuart’s secret activities? Given that Stuart and the Archive has shown, patience may be rewarded, if Rothschilds had dealings in certain fields in ‘a only by a glimpse of a hidden past. cloak-and-dagger period’, and given also that the

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Notes 10. National Library of Scotland: MS. 6165-6195 11. Coutts & Co. Accounts Books, Sir Charles Stuart 1. Private Papers of British Diplomats 1782-1900 (The Royal 12. Elizabeth Sparrow, Secret Service, p. 54 Commission on Historical Manuscripts, 1985), p. 65 13. Rothschild Archive London: X1/109/8 2. Niall Ferguson, The World’s Banker (London, 1998), p. 16 14. Ibid. X1/109/9 3. East Sussex Record Office: AMS. 6297/15 15. Ibid. X1/109/8 4. Rothschild Archive London: X1/T17/65 16. British Library: Add. MSS. 41533, f. 203 5. National Library of Scotland: MS. 6164, p. 727 17. National Library of Scotland: MS. 6212 6. Duff Cooper, Talleyrand (London, 1997), p. 284 18. Rothschild Archive London: X1/109/8; Ibid. X1/109/9, 7. The Hon. F. Leveson Gower (ed.), The Letters of Harriet Ibid. X1/T17/127 Countess Granville (London, 1894), v. l, p. 67 19. Niall Ferguson, The World’s Banker, p. 164 ff 8. National Library of Scotland: MS. 6175-6179; MS. 6182- 6183; MS. 6196; MS. 6214 20. Rothschild Archive London: X1/T6/32 21. Coutts & Co. Account Books, Sir Charles Stuart 9. Coutts & Co. Account Books, Sir Charles Stuart; Elizabeth Sparrow, Secret Service (The Boydell Press, 1999) p. 44 22. Hansard, 1822, v. 6, col. 1430

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The Clementine The Rothschild Archive is from time to time called upon to provide historical background in support of organisations that were founded or supported by the Rothschild family. This year, the Archive supplied research material and images for a 125th anniversary book produced by the Clementine Children’s Hospital in Frankfurt*

The Rothschild family established and supported The commemorative book, launched at the City numerous medical, cultural and social foundations Hall, records the short life of Clementine against in their home town of Frankfurt. Few of them the background of her faith and examines the survived the crises of the 1930s and 1940s but principle of ‘good works’ – Zedaka – that motivated some traces still remain. The most prominent of the family’s charitable activities. these is the Clementine Children’s Hospital, established in 1875 by Louise (1820-1886), the wife of Mayer Carl von Rothschild and the mother of Clementine who had died in 1865 aged only twenty. The foundation, initially known as the Clementine-Mädchen-Spital, was established to provide free medical care for girls of all denominations between the ages of 5 and 15. It survived the period of inflation thanks to further donations by members of the family, in particular Emma, Lady Rothschild, and Clementine’s other sisters, but had to be taken over by the German women’s section of the Red Cross.

The hospital was totally destroyed by bombing in 1943. In 1974 it was merged with the Dr Christ’sche Stiftung, but it retains its own identity.

The board of directors of the hospital, headed by Dr Barbara Reschke, organised various celebratory events during 2000, including medical conferences, benefit concerts and special activities for children and their parents. The culmination was the Jubilee Celebration in the City Hall of Frankfurt hosted by the Lord Mayor and addressed by the Minister of Health and Social Welfare for Hessen. On this occasion the name of the Foundation was inscribed in the City’s Golden Book. Clementine von Rothschild, 1845-1865

*Clementine von Rothschild: 1845-1865; full of talent and grace; zum 125-jährigen Bestehen des Clementine-Kinderhospitals, Barbara Reschke, ed., on behalf of the Board of the Clementine Kinderhospital (Frankfurt am Main: Societäts-Verl., 2000)

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Whatever happened to Sarah? Vic Gray explores the background to a chance survival which uncovered a forgotten Rothschild initiative

We know nothing of Sarah Tomlin. The Tomlin The seed of this idea rapidly took root. The family lived modestly in the Buckinghamshire original intention to focus on Aston Clinton and village of Aston Clinton in the 1860s, a family of its immediate neighbourhood was rapidly left rural labourers. But when the census enumerator behind as applications to display crafts, artefacts called, Sarah was not there, perhaps away in and produce poured in from an area more than 20 service. All we have now is her name, engraved on miles across and covering 50 parishes. The fact the rim of a bronze medal. It may have been her that small rural industries, often cottage work only moment of fame. undertaken by individuals, might merit a place in an exhibition aimed at a broad range of society, The medal, recently acquired at auction by The encouraged participation in just the way that Rothschild Archive (000/851), commemorates the Anthony had intended. More than 3,000 exhibits Halton Industrial Exhibition of 1868, now virtually were eventually submitted and displayed. forgotten but in its day a bold experiment in rural community regeneration. Central to these were agriculture and cottage husbandry and the traditional Buckinghamshire The Exhibition was the brainchild of Sir Anthony craft of straw plaiting. But exhibits demonstrating de Rothschild, second son of Nathan Mayer individual crafts – building furniture, tool-making Rothschild, a committed countryman who, in 1851, – were welcomed as a means of raising standards had taken up residence in Aston Clinton at the and of encouraging self-help initiatives to relieve foot of the Chiltern Hills. poverty. A special prize was to be awarded for the best model of a modern farm cottage to be 1851 was a significant date. In that year Joseph submitted by a local carpenter or builder, a Paxton was designing the Rothschild’s first English contribution to the great movement of the time to country house, at Mentmore, just down the road provide cheap but hygienic housing for the rural from Aston Clinton, while at the same time his community. innovative and influential structure at Crystal Palace was taking shape to house the Great The Exhibition opened on 1st June on a 4-acre Exhibition, intended to display the best in industry site at Halton Park on Sir Anthony’s estate. and arts from around the world. It spawned many imitations around the world, most of them on an A brave showing of marquees lined the site on a equally grand scale. What Anthony did in 1868 fine English summer day. At one o’clock, a band was to take the concept of the Great Exhibition of Grenadier Guards and a choir of local village and apply it on a more local scale, in an effort to school children took up their positions on the demonstrate the range of creativity and skills in a lawn. Past a Guard of Honour formed by the small rural community. Aylesbury Corps of the Bucks Volunteers, filed Sir Anthony and his family with an entourage of dignitaries. They included Miss Angela Burdett- Coutts, the philanthropist, Mr Abel Smith M. P. who, ten years previously had introduced Lionel de Rothschild to the House of Commons and, as guests of honour, the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli and his wife, long friends of the Rothschild family.

The Prime Minister made the opening speech, extolling the virtues of the county of The opening of the Halton Industrial Exhibition by Benjamin Disraeli Buckinghamshire. ‘I think, my friends, under these

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encouraging circumstances, we need not despair of pieces of cork and 16,000 pins and a model our manufactures flourishing and increasing in the mansion constructed wholly of fragments of chair good County of Buckingham, especially met as we leg, the fruit of 20 years’ labour. are today to recognise success, to stimulate effort, and to excite to further excellence in these More than 5,000 visitors attended the Exhibition different branches.’ Then to the strains of ‘God on its first gala day, at a cost of two shillings per Save the Queen’, the crowd was let loose on the head. On the four following days entrance was displays. In the old mansion at Halton, once the reduced to two pence. On the Wednesday alone seat of the Dashwood family, were laid-out 8,000 people attended – no mean number when the paintings and other artwork by local amateurs, nearest railway station was five miles away. Canal together with locally produced lace. In the first of barges and omnibuses had been commandeered to the marquees, surrounding an ornamental fountain provide transport to the site. erected by the Chiltern Hills Spring Water Co., were the produce exhibits: bread, butter, beer, On the final Saturday, 300 medals were distributed. wine, jam and confectionery. Next door, was a The Gold Medal, for cottage design, was awarded geological model of the parish of Halton together to Mr A. Mayne of Aylesbury, with plans for with fossils and rocks and locally collected natural cottages which he proposed to build for £225 a history specimens. In two further tents, were the pair. And among those who wandered away products of local industry: straw-plaiting, silk happily on that June evening, clutching her bronze weaving, engineering models, needlework and medal for embroidering a baby’s shirt, was Sarah furniture. Among the wilder fruits of cottagers’ Tomlin – back home and into obscurity. ingenuity was a model church made of 5,000

Sources

The Times, 2 June and 6 June 1868 The Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News, 30 May and 6 June 1868 Census Returns for Aston Clinton, 1861 and 1871(microfilm held by Buckinghamshire Records and Local Studies Service, Aylesbury)

The bronze medal from the Halton Industrial Exhibition awarded to Sarah Tomlin of Aston Clinton. The reverse (right) carries the monogram of Sir Anthony de Rothschild, with the inscription: ‘Halton Aston Clinton Industrial Exhibition’ and the family motto, ‘Concordia Industria Integritas’. On the obverse (left), the inscription is reduced into English: ‘Let Truth and Concord ever be the Faithful Friends of Industry’.

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Principal Acquisitions 1 April 2000-31 March 2001 This list is not comprehensive but attempts to record all acquisitions of most immediate relevance to research. Some items listed here may, however, remain closed to access for some time and for a variety of reasons. Researchers should always enquire as to the availability of specific items before visiting the Archive, quoting the reference number which appears at the end of each paragraph

Family papers collected by Nathaniel Mayer (Natty), 1st Lord Rothschild (1840-1915), his wife Emma Louisa and their descendants, including: sale particulars and correspondence re the purchase of the Gunnersbury estate by Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777-1836); letters from Charlotte de Rothschild (1819-1884) to her husband Lionel (1808-1879); correspondence from Hannah Rothschild (née Cohen, 1783-1850), and her children to her husband Nathan Mayer, 1824-25; letters from Evelyn (1886- 1917) and Anthony de Rothschild (1887-1961) and other serving officers, 1915; collections of bills and returns relating to the Rothschild property at 148 Piccadilly; lists, notes and valuations of works of art at Tring Park and 148 Piccadilly; correspondence addressed to Lionel de Rothschild (1808-1879) from various political figures; letters of condolence addressed to Nathaniel Mayer on the death of his father, Lionel, in 1879; letters to Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild, from staff of The Times and from George V and Queen Alexandra re the paper’s Red Cross appeal, 1915; letters to Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild, from numerous political figures, 1880s-c.1915; visitors’ books, Tring Park, 1875-1932 passim; Tring Park servants’ wages book, 1900-33 and garden produce book, 1938-40; illuminated subscription volume for the Rothschild Wing of the Jews’ Free School, 1898; illuminated testimonials to Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, 1910; obituaries and press cuttings on his death, 1915; press cuttings re the General Election campaign of Walter Rothschild (1868- 1937) for the Aylesbury Division, 1906; typed volume In Memoriam NCR 1877-1923, on the death of Charles Rothschild; bound typescript account, anonymous and undated, of the Bill of Exchange with annotations in Charles’ hand; photograph album labelled Wady-el-Natroun, 1903: FRH, NCR, recording a specimen-hunting expedition to Egypt and the Sudan by Charles and F. R. Henley; contract between Mayer Amschel de Rothschild (1818-74) and George Myers for the erection of Mentmore House, 1851; bound and printed volume by Hannah Rosebery (née Rothschild, 1851-90) listing the art collections of her father Mayer Amschel de Rothschild at Mentmore, 1883; printed catalogue, A description of the works of art forming the collection of Alfred de Rothschild (Charles Davis, 1884) (2 vols.); volume labelled Leopold and Marie, January 19 1881, containing reprinted notices and illustrations of the wedding of Leopold de Rothschild (1845-1917) and Marie Perugia (1862-1937); printed volume of theological texts addressed to Amschel von Rothschild (1773-1855), 1830; portfolios of printed text and plates Der Schatz des Freiherrn Karl von Rothschild: Meisterwerke alter Goldschniedekunst aus dem 14-18 Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1883); printed volume Verzeichniss der Freiherrlich Carl von Rothschild’schen Sammlung, n.d.; printed sale catalogue, Orfèvrerie allemande, pierres dures montées provenant de l’ancienne collection de feu M. le Baron Carl Mayer de Rothschild, de Francfort, annotated with prices, Galérie Georges Petit, Paris, June 1911; draft will of James Mayer de Rothschild (1792-1868), 1827 and printed volume A la mémoire du Baron James Mayer de Rothschild, 1878; bound volume of manuscript and printed musical compositions by Hannah Mathilde von Rothschild (1832-1924), Mélodies pour le chant composées par Mathilde de Rothschild, n.d.; printed volume Les Vaux de Cernay (Seine-et-Oise) à Madame la Baronne Nathaniel de Rothschild, n.d.; printed volume L’Allaitement mixte et l’Allaitement artificiel, by Henri de Rothschild (Paris, 1898); volume of genealogical notes on the Rothschild family, bearing the book-stamp of de Rothschild Frères, n.d., French, 20th century; volume of cuttings concerning the Rothschild family and Jewish affairs, 1937-39; five albums of portrait photographs of the

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family and associates; portfolio of Rothschild properties in and around Frankfurt, by C. F. Mylius entitled Stadt-u. Landhäuser der Freiherrlichen Familie von Rothschild, n.d.; portfolio of 19 photographic plates of Ashton Wold, n.d.; portfolio of photographs of the house of Adèle, Baroness Salomon de Rothschild (1843-1922) at rue Berryer, Paris, showing parts of her portion of the collection of her late father, Mayer Carl; two volumes of photographs of the Royal Mint Refinery, 1950s-60s and other miscellaneous 20th century papers (000/848)

Family papers preserved and arranged by Anthony Gustav de Rothschild (1887-1961), including: collection of press cuttings re the Rothschild and Goldsmid families, 1702-1953; transcript of diary of Dr Schlemmer, a tutor of the Rothschild family in London, c.1830; list of wedding presents received by Charlotte Béatrice de Rothschild (1864-1934) and Maurice Ephrussi (1849-1916), 1883; memorial volume published on the death of James Mayer de Rothschild, 1868; volume of press cuttings on the entry of Lionel de Rothschild (1808-79) to the House of Commons, 1850 and hymn and prayer by Rabbi Belais on the occasion of his election as M.P.; elegy and volume of cuttings on the death of Lionel, 1879; letters to Lionel and Charlotte de Rothschild from their son Leopold (1845-1917), 1864-84 and their niece Hannah Rosebery, 1883-84; letters to and from Charlotte de Rothschild (1819-84) from family and friends, 1838-84; photographs, diary and personal papers of Charlotte, 1818-84; sermon on her death, 1884; letters to and from Louise (1821-1910), wife of Anthony Nathan de Rothschild, 1835-1910 and press cuttings on her death; manuscript ‘Lord Rothschild and the Alien Commission’, c.1903; press cuttings and order of service on the death of Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild, 1915; drawings by Evelina de Rothschild (1839-66) and papers on her death, 1866-67; address delivered on the death of Ferdinand de Rothschild, 1898; letters to and from Marie de Rothschild (née Perugia, 1862-1937), including correspondence with members of the Landauer, Schey and Perugia families, 1874-1936; and other miscellaneous items (000/924)

Family papers collected by Marie-Louise (née Beer, 1892-1975), wife of Lionel de Rothschild (1808-1879), and her secretary, including: letters from Lionel de Rothschild to his wife, Marie-Louise, 1922-39; album of ‘Family Letters etc.’, c.1900-1930s; album of ‘Letters from important people’, 1914- 1940s; letters to Lionel de Rothschild, 1912-30s, from, inter alia, Marie-Louise, his brother Anthony Gustav (1887-1961) and Constance, Lady Battersea (née Rothschild, 1843-1931); collection of press cuttings re the Rothschild family, 1912-75; admission ticket to the marriage of Leopold de Rothschild and Marie Perugia, 1881; miscellaneous personal letters, papers and mementoes (000/928)

Documents relating to the conveyance of property on the Bucks./Herts. Estate, 1855-1893, with earlier documents of title, 17th-19th century; correspondence from entomologists and parasitologists addressed to Charles Rothschild, 1919-22; letters by him re collection of birds’ nests for a study of parasites, 1901- 1909; papers re the Royal Commission on the London Stock Exchange, 1877-78, on which sat Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild (1840-1915) (000/972)

Printed Report of the Committee of Secrecy … on the Renewal of the Bank of England Charter, 1832, to which Nathan Mayer Rothschild gave evidence on 24 July 1832 (000/849)

Printed book: Tipheres Israel: Biographie der Freiherren von Rothschild bei Gelegenheit des gegenwärtig zu Ende gehenden Jahrhunderts seit der Geburt des Hauptes dieser hochberühmten Familie H. H. Meyer Anselm Rothschild als Beitrag zu hochderselben Secular-Feur von A. M. Mohr (Lemberg, 1843) (Hebrew text) (000/872)

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Copy building contract between Anthony de Rothschild (1810-1876) and George Myers, contractor of Lambeth, for repairs and extensions to Aston Clinton House, 1855 (000/891)

Bronze medal awarded to Sarah Tomlin of Aston Clinton at the Aston Clinton Industrial Exhibition, 1868 (000/851)

Printed book: Stunden der Andacht: ein Gebet- und Erbauungs-Buch für Israels Frauen und Jungfrauen …, by Fanny Neuda (Prague, 1879), dedicated to Louise von Rothschild (000/425)

Indenture, schedule and plans of the Rothschild Estate in the Vale of Aylesbury, c.1880 [damaged] (000/891)

Collection of 50 satirical caricatures, Musée des Horreurs, in poster form by Lenepveu of Paris, featuring, inter alia, Nathan Mayer Rothschild, Carl Mayer von Rothschild, James de Rothschild, Alphonse de Rothschild (2 items), Leonora de Rothschild, Henri de Rothschild and Charlotte de Rothschild, c.1900 (000/922)

Printed catalogue of the Carl von Rothschild Library, Frankfurt (Freiherrlich Carl von Rothschild’sche offëntliche Bibliothek: Verzeichnis der Bücher: Band 1) (Frankfurt, 1892-98) (000/800)

Printed book: Bibliographia Lactaria: Bibliographie générale des travaux parus sur le lait et l’allaitement jusqu’en 1899, Henri de Rothschild (Paris, 1901) (Lib)

Deeds, maps and sale particulars of land in Buckinghamshire, chiefly in Aylesbury and Wingrave, 1881- 1956; correspondence of Lionel de Rothschild (1882-1942) regarding local (Bucks.) charitable concerns, 1911-15 (000/891)

Video copy of newsreel film of Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild, unveiling the Hampden Statue in Aylesbury, a Coronation gift to the people of Buckinghamshire, 27 June 1912 (from the collections of the National Film and Television Archive) (000/915)

File of letters of condolence on the death of Nathaniel Mayer, 1st Lord Rothschild, addressed to N M Rothschild & Sons, April 1915 (000/846)

Microfilm of a collection of European press cuttings relating to the Rothschild family, 1886-1928, originally from the Carl von Rothschild Library, Frankfurt and now in the Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Frankfurt (000/838)

Files of letters to N M Rothschild & Sons from corresponding banks, as follows: de Rothschild Frères, Paris, 1915-35 (000/855) S. M. von Rothschild und Söhne, 1918-38 (000/868) G. Bauer & Co., Madrid, 1918-31 (000/869) L. Auerbach, Amsterdam, 1918-30 (000/870) August Belmont, New York, 1918-30 (000/871) S. Bleichröder, Berlin, 1918-1935 (000/871) M. M. Warburg, Hamburg, 1918-30 (000/902)

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Files from N M Rothschild & Sons, labelled Affaires and relating to specific initiatives, projects and transactions, 1925-1970 (000/908)

Files from the Secretary’s Department of N M Rothschild & Sons relating principally to charitable and external affairs, 1918-70 (000/918, 935, 940)

Pen and ink drawings of six versions of the Rothschild coat of arms, 1817-1962 (000/839)

Typescript of anonymous memoir of working life at New Court, 1910-55, compiled in 1964 (000/921)

Photographs and slides of the Schillersdorf Estate, Czech Republic, 1935-1990s (000/835)

Printed book: The Anthony de Rothschild collection of Chinese ceramics, by Regina Krahl, 2 vols., 1996 (000/832)

Photographs of the Topping-Out Ceremony for the extension of New Court on the east side of St. Swithin’s Lane, London, performed by Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, 29 April 1997 (000/812)

Photocopies and research notes compiled during the writing of A Gilt-Edged Life, the memoirs of Edmund de Rothschild, published 1998 (000/794)

Photographs, and audio-cassette of speeches, from the reception to mark the opening of The Rothschild Archive, 30 May 2000 (000/815, 844)

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